SOURCE: “The Evolution of Order: Edward Bellamy's Nationalist Utopia” in The Unbounded Frame: Freedom and Community in Nineteenth Century American Utopianism, Greenwood Press, 1973, pp. 104-23.

In the following essay, Fellman argues that Bellamy's desire for social and economic renewal led him to a vision of authoritarian unity.

With a tear for the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it.

—Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887

I

“Evolution, not revolution,” Edward Bellamy declared in 1889, “orderly and progressive development, not precipitate and hazardous experiment, is our true policy.”¹ For Bellamy, reform was a natural developmental process, not a sudden and total imposition of truth. The growing industrialism and social consolidation of his era could be coupled with correct moral...